Health governance and healthcare reforms in China

Abstract

This article examines the role of health governance in shaping the outcomes of healthcare reforms in China. The analysis shows that the failure of reforms during the 1980s and 1990s was in part due to inadequate attention to key aspects in health governance, such as strategic interactions among government, providers and users, as well as incentive structures shaping their preferences and behaviour. Although more recent reforms seek to correct these flaws, they are insufficiently targeted at the fundamental governance problems that beset the sector. The article suggests that the Chinese government needs to heighten its efforts to enhance health governance and change the ways providers are paid if it is to succeed in achieving its goal of providing health care to all at affordable cost.

How does the pharmaceutical industry influence prescription? A qualitative study of provider payment incentives and drug remunerations in hospitals in Shanghai

“…Scholars suggested a few potential packages for correcting incentives of over-prescription, which include drug price control, strengthen provider-payment reforms, improving provider management, etc. (Yip and Hsiao, 2009: 613-619;Wagstaff et al, 2009: S7-S23;Ramesh et al, 2014;Yip et al, 2012: 833-842). Yet, in the case of China, even though the government is well aware of such problem and has launched several policy initiatives to control it, these initiatives have met with little success (Eggleston et al 2008).…”

Designing Effective Healthcare: Matching Policy Tools to Problems in China

“…Similarly, increased public funding of *Correspondence to: Azad Bali, Murdoch University, 390 Havelock Road, 06-06, Singapore 169662. Email: a.bali@murdoch.edu.au healthcare without commensurate checks on provider behaviour is known to escalate healthcare costs (Ramesh et al 2013).…”

Health Insurance and the Demand for Medical Care: a Case Study from China

“…However, after we try to separate the selection effect and the incentive effect from the positive correlation, we can only find the evidence of selection effect, but fail to find the incentive effect. There are increasing interests about the health care expenditures in China, such as Lei and Lin (2009);Xu and Yang (2009);Yip and Hsiao (2009a;2009b) and Ramesh et al (2014). My paper studies the Chinese health care expenditures from a different perspective by focusing on comparison of the selection effect and the incentive effect.…”